Tobacco Culture

Abstract

TOBACCO is no exception to the rule that plants require phosphorus for growth, but it needs little compared with other crops. Under certain conditions, the growers may profitably take advantage of this property. Field tests have been carried out at Windsor, U.S.A. (Report for 1926 of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station), on old tobacco land which has carried the same crop for a long period of years regularly manured with a complete fertiliser. On such land, no response to phosphorus treatment was obtained, neither the yield, quality, nor burning properties of the tobacco being affected by withholding the application. This is considered due to the fact that, as so little phosphorus is taken up by the crop, and only a small quantity removed by leaching, a surplus supply has been built up through the continued manurial treatment. Growers on this land can therefore effect considerable saving by omitting phosphate from their fertiliser mixtures for an indefinite number of years without incurring any risk, as the organic constituents of the manure applied are considered capable of supplying sufficient phosphorus to guard against depletion. However, on tobacco land where some rotation of crops is practised or on new fields, the same conditions do not obtain, and it would probably not be economic to omit the phosphatic dressings.